• After 1850, the Classical style emerged

  • Developed especially in Vienna

    • Vienna is located at the crossroads of 4 other musical nations, and was in a lot of European conflicts

    • Hapsburg empress Maria Theresa and emperor Joseph II supported music and lit w/ patronage

The Enlightenment and Music

• Joseph II was “enlightened”

• The Enlightenment was centered in France, had roots in Britain, Germany, and Austria

  • Source of development was the “faith in reason”

• 2 French philosophers mentioned when talking about the Enlightenment

  • Voltaire (aka François Marie Arouet; 1694-1778), a “tireless satirist and campaigner for justice and reason”

  • Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), younger and more radical

    • Had a direct impact on music

“The Pursuit of Happiness”

• Social justice became big after Thomas Jefferson and the Magna Carta

• 18th century had salons (party/seminar) and public concerts

• Enlightenment “holds special resonance for America”

Art and Entertainment

• Art was to please

• Rococo, a “light and often frothy” style was popular (midcentury)

  • Common genre at the time was divertimento, a piece to “divert” (entertain)

  • We don’t study this much?

Jean-Jacques Rosseau and Opera

• Rosseau was a novelist, philosopher, and self taught composer, among other things

• He wanted opera that portrayed “real people in actual life”

  • This lead to the formation of opera buffa, Italian comic opera that did just that

    • Lively and catchy

The Novel

• New literary genre, “the Enlightenment’s greatest artistic legacy to more recent times”

• Ideally, they were realistic observations of contemporary life

The Rise of Concerts

• Public concerts became big

• There were regular concert series and charity concerts

• First concert hall was the Holywell Music Room in Oxford, England

• Purely orchestral music “moved into the public domain”

• Public concerts were not great for making money

Style Features of Classical Music

• Ideal music was natural and pleasing

• There was still some complexity

• New expressive quality

Rhythm

• Biggest change

• Highly flexible in rhythm

• Tempo and meter may be constant

• Less predictable, more interesting

Dynamics

• More variety and flexibility

• Notated in music now (f, p, ff, etc.)

• Lots of crescendo and diminuendo

• Piano started to replaced harpsichord

  • Pianoforte!

Tone Color: The Classical Orchestra

• Basis for symphonic orchestra

• Heart was (still) stringed instruments

• Classical orchestra had violins 1 and 2, violas, cellos, basses, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 french horns, 2 timpani, and optionally 2 clarinets and/or trumpeuts

• Woodwinds provided “pleasing variety” and strengthened strings

• Brass provided support for main harmonies in the middle range

Melody: Tunes

• Uncomplicated and singable (simple)

• Closer to popular/folk music

• Tunes were worked into larger compositions

• Theme and variation form became popular

Texture: Homophony

• Primary texture is homophony

  • Considered more “natural” than polyphony

• Easier to compose, in some ways

• Precisely specified harmonies

• “Continuo” was discontinued

Classical Counterpoint

• Some Classical composers still used a “more delicate, unobtrusive” counterpoint

• Attracted special attention

• More intense and artificial

• Heart in sonatas, often in the development section

Form in Classical Music

Repetitions and Cadences

• Themes in classical music are repeated immediately and many times

• Preceded distinctively?

• Closed off distinctively

Classical Forms

• Most important forms were…

  • Sonata form

  • Minuet form

  • Rondo form

  • Theme and variations form

• “Commonly understood frame of reference [for music]”